In my last post, I talked about climbing 800 feet and huffing and puffing. Given that, I’m not sure what made us think that hiking the Kuliouou Ridge Trail was a good idea. The hiking guide said that the trail climbed 1200 ft. – we did okay on the 800 ft. climb. We can totally do this.  It’s not that much higher right?

The trail starts out at the end of a small neighborhood with little parking so we had to park a quarter of a mile down the road, but hey what’s another quarter of a mile? We strapped on our backpack, water bottles and hiking hats and started out. At first this trail was much like the Aeia trail with gradually ascending switchbacks up the side of the mountain and beautiful scenery along the way.

We continued along occasionally checking our GPS to monitor our progress and feeling pretty good about ourselves. Though there was a fair amount of huffing and puffing again, we were already at 900 ft. and hanging in. 

A while later, going by our GPS and the time that we had been hiking, we were just about at the end of the trail when we came to a small shelter. As we rested a bit, some hikers on their way back down said that the views were fantastic and worth the effort. We asked how much further and one said “You’re about half  way there.  After several long moments of shock and dismay, Tom questioned him and the guy revised his statement saying well, maybe we were about 3/4 of the way. One of the others then said in a very ominous voice , “Good luck with the steps.” Wonder what that means?

They moved on and, being pretty determined and possibly a bit stubborn, so did we.  About 20 minutes later we found out about the steps.  There were 266 of them and they went straight up the mountain another 400 ft. I thought I was going to have to be airlifted off.

After stopping every ten steps to breath – stubbornly, determinedly, and gasping for air we made it to the top, and as promised, the views were spectacular!!!!

After a long rest and soaking in the magnificence of our surroundings, the question became, “How do we get back down?” We discussed hurling ourselves over the edge but decided that that was a little extreme, so we started the long journey down, and down, and down…

We eventually made it (on very rubbery legs). It took us about 4 1/2 hours and our GPS said that the rise in elevation was 1800 ft. – a guide book we looked at later confirmed that. It didn’t make my legs feel any better, but at least it made us feel better psychologically.

Anyway, we headed to a nearby park for a late lunch – Aloha burgers of course.

  

The park was lovely, quiet and a perfect place to decompress.

Then home for a little beach time and cocktails.

Aloha